Pretty awesome eh? I love the little touches, like the police badge, the gun that won’t let you fire if you’re too excited (shades of Rogue Trooper there), the visual flourishes (like the planet/cherry), nice chemistry between the team in the limited scenes we see and the holographic everything else.

And Sean Pertwee is in it too. I wonder if he can top his – for me – career defining role as the cult leader who made people poo in Operation Good Guys.

Back to Slingers and it just … feels … right. Considering it is still at the pre-pilot stage, it looks very polished too which has drawn some heavyweight support from the likes of Warren Ellis and great social media buzz.

Here’s hoping we will be seeing the full series on a screen near us soon, but … there’s always a but … if the creators aren’t aware of what has been going on with genre TV at the moment, they should be.

The success of Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and to a lesser extent Fringe and Stargate Universe has really opened the door for science fiction shows like never before.

The only problem is many of them … just aren’t very good and waste a great premise by lacking originality over time or thinking being obtuse and using flashy effects can replace compelling characters and narrative. (I’m looking at you Flash Forward and Heroes.)

That means a lot of shows are being cut off at the knees by TV execs who want an instant return on their investment, like the Sarah Connor Chronicles and V. The more that happens, the more the pressure ramps up on new shows to hit the ground running.

The good thing is Slingers is under the radar at the moment and (I think) British, meaning it can develop without the same kind of pressure and interference as those shows for the moment.

For its own sake and for people like me – who don’t want to have our hopes dashed again – my fingers are crossed that relatively low-key development will mean another Life on Mars break out success. Time will tell, but it certainly has promising beginnings.

3 thoughts on “New science fiction show Slingers looks really cool”

Looks good, but I have a question.
Is this light/lens flaring the new thing to say “futuristic” or something?

The new Star Trek was almost spoiled by it, every time the camera panned there was massive stylised lens flare. Now, maybe I’m just old fashioned, but this used to mean poor camera work and bad lighting, now they are actually creating it with computers ?